Google Case Study Organizational Culture

Google Case Study

What kinds of people work at Google? How does this relate to the organizational culture? What should be the role of HR? What should be the role of managers? Google continues to excel at the front of its industry with its specialization in providing computer services that range from its powerful search engine, software and hardware, advertising campaign, and cloud computing. The reason that Google continues to be a monumental success is because of its employees that work there. Google looks for individuals that really think outside of the box and try to find solutions to ambiguous questions instead of the norm of just finding a solution to a normal problem. Laszlo Bock, Google’s former Senior Vice President of the

Typically, the role of Human Resources is just the process of recruiting highly qualified candidates that meet the specifications of the job and to also ensure employee welfare relations and welfare are met. Google one upped this definition by hiring a subdivision in their people operations called “people analytics” that wanted to “be hypothesis-driven to help solve company problems and questions with data” (Garvin). From this subdivision, that is when they asked the big question: Do Managers

Managers have the responsibilities of ensuring that all employees are doing their jobs effectively and efficiently, stating their expectations and goals to people they are in charge, and emphasizing the goals of the company by making sure these goals are being at least met if not exceeded. But Google was having a very difficult time with their managers, specifically in the division of their engineers. The reason so is that engineers have their own style of doing things and they don't like to be micromanaged. Businesses become inefficient with production when they have managers that micromanage; employees lose that creativity and innovation when their bosses are breathing down their necks. So in response to the gripes and complaints about Google's engineers about management, Google launched Project Oxygen. Project Oxygen was trying to prove the point that the quality of management does not have a significant impact on performance in Google’s company. Google hired statisticians to collect data on the characteristics of high and low ranked managers and discovered that great managers actually make a difference in the efficiency and effectiveness of a company. These eight attributes are as follows:

1. Is a good coach.

2. Empowers the team and does no micromanage.

3. Expresses interest in and concern for team members' success and personal well-being

4. Is productive and results-oriented